The Little Girl
by Gisele
Summary: Is the murdered little girl Hunter's daughter?


The Little Girl  
  
On a chilly Saturday morning of 1988 the phone rang and woke Hunter up at 7 o'clock. It was Charlie, who urged him to go to Wilshire Park, where a body has just been found. The strapping cop rapidly put his tight jeans and coat on and, as McCall wasn't at home and couldn't be found, headed for the crime scene by himself. There, Hunter had to face one of the saddest scenes in his whole life: lying next to a tree was a brunette child of about 10 years old, bathed in blood. Even though he felt miserable, he had to go on doing his job. The press had already arrived there and the journalists were getting on Hunter's nerves - it didn't matter what it would take, but they were really determined to get a "good" photo of the dead little girl for their front pages.  
  
"Take a hike!" Hunter screamed at them and ordered the police officers to hold back not only the reporters but also the crowd that had assembled around the body.  
  
At that moment, McCall arrived and Hunter kept her from reaching the crime scene, worried about McCall's reaction at the bloody scene; Hunter knew, although McCall was as professional as him, the vision of the little girl would be too shocking for her. He asked where she had spent the night, since she wasn't at home, in order to start a conversation. DeeDee chimed in she was at her mom's and asked who had been murdered. He gave her the details, which made McCall feel miserable as well. Hunter glanced at his watch and led McCall to her car; he took his and they headed for the station house.  
  
At the Missing Persons department, they found a child whose description matched the dead one and asked her mother to come to the precinct. Charlotte Anderson was a 32-year- old single woman. Her daughter, 9-year-old Chloe, had vanished from their house on Friday, right after arriving from school. Hunter and McCall pussyfooted around to tell Charlotte about the child found in the park, but eventually they asked her to go to the morgue to identify the body. Unfortunately, the dead girl was Chloe and Charlotte had to be taken to the hospital in a state of shock.  
  
That night, it was too hard for McCall to turn in. She kept thinking of Chloe in the morgue, her mother in tears. DeeDee had lost her husband Steve, but the pain that woman had felt seemed tenfold worse. After hours staring at the ceiling, she heard somebody knocking on the door. It was Hunter, who seemed very upset. McCall let him in and they sat on the couch. He stared at her and said:  
  
"McCall, I need to get something off my chest."  
  
"OK, Hunter, shoot."  
  
"Since this morning I have been feeling so miserable!" begun Hunter.  
  
"So have I, partner. That child..."  
  
"Please, McCall, just listen to me. Here's the thing: I know Charlotte; yeah, I know her. When I saw her in the precinct, I didn't recognize her. She's very different from that brunette girl I met 10 years ago. Now, she has red short hair and is a little overweight."  
  
"Do you mean...?" McCall chimed in.  
  
"We dated. She was a stripper and, as I didn't feel comfortable with her job, we broke up after few months. I was in love with her. The night we split up, she wanted to say something, but I didn't let her speak, I was so mad at her. You see, McCall, she said it was important and I didn't listen to her..."  
  
After saying that, Hunter looked down. The emotion stopped him from going on talking; and for a few minutes, neither him nor DeeDee was able to break the silence.  
  
Finally, McCall said:  
  
"Look, Hunter, if Chloe was your daughter, Charlotte would have already looked for you! She would have wanted your support!"  
  
McCall's argument didn't convince Hunter very much. They kept on talking, till morning but the conversation didn't bring any relief to Hunter. He was almost having a breakdown when McCall suggested that he should rush to ask Charlotte the truth, although it would be very painful for both of them to have this conversation right then. Besides, being or not Chloe's father, Hunter should be there for her mother, since they once were in love with each other. He agreed with his partner; he would bend over backwards to support Charlotte and immediately headed for her house. Arriving there, he found the front door open. Hunter took his gun and entered the house. The place was neat and tidy, except one of the bedrooms. There were clothes all over the bed and the wardrobe was empty. It seemed Charlotte had packed and left the house in a hurry. Hunter was beside himself with worry. What would have happened with her?  
  
In the precinct, Hunter thought that he had 3 big problems to solve: the murder, Charlotte's disappearance and the doubt whether he was Chloe's father or not. Sitting across the desk, McCall tried to cheer him up, which seemed almost impossible due to the circumstances. The phone rang; it was Barney, who asked the cops to come to the morgue. Noticing that Hunter was loath to go, McCall suggested that he should stay and wait the news. In the morgue, Barney told McCall that Chloe died from multiple injuries, which seemed to have been caused by a running over.  
  
"What do you mean, Barney? Wasn't she murdered?" McCall asked.  
  
"I don't think so." Barney replied.  
  
"I see, somebody ran down Chloe and, to make difficult police's work, provided us with a homicide scene. Thus, we would focus on some psycho or serial killer." McCall chimed in.  
  
Back to the precinct, McCall told Hunter what Barney said. He felt a little relieved somehow -- maybe because the idea of murdering a child was more shocking than a car accident.  
  
Hunter and McCall went on investigating and got some progress. They were told that in Chloe's clothes it was found fragments of ink, indicating that the color of the car which killed her was red; besides, in one of the sleeves of her blouse there were marks of an uncommon brand of tire. While McCall followed these clues, Hunter tried to discover what had happened to Charlotte. He returned to her house, to go through her things again. There, he found several photos of mother and daughter, but any clue about who would be the father. Looking at the pics, Hunter could see that Chloe had been a very happy child.  
  
He was lost in sad thoughts when, out of the blue, Charlotte entered the bedroom. They looked at each other and she started crying. Hunter approached her, took her in his arms and held her for a long, long time, till the tears went away. Then, she lifted her head and, looking at Hunter's blue eyes, could read the question which had been torturing him the past few days.  
  
"No, Rick, Chloe was not your daughter," she immediately said. "You have been thinking that, haven't you? Oh, Rick, she wasn't yours. Her father died before she was born. I met him right after we had broken up. My sweet little angel... I miss her so much..." and the tears started flowing again.  
  
It took hours till Hunter was able to ask Charlotte why she had left the house in such a hurry. She told Hunter that, after returning from the hospital, she was in bed thinking about Chloe when she remembered a man with whom she had had an affair the year before and things ended badly. This man, whose name was John Adams, threatened her and her daughter by saying that one day he would hurt them a lot. At the time, she didn't get worried because Johnny used to shoot his mouth off and do nothing, but after Chloe's death... She felt like biting his head off and went to San Diego, where the guy was living, seeking for revenge - she wasn't able to think, all she wantted was killed the bastard who had taken her little girl from her. But, arriving there, she learned that her ex- boyfriend had suffered a car accident 6 months before and had been in coma since then. He had got married to a nice woman, who was carrying his baby. It was then Charlotte realized how wrong she was; if she had met the guy, she would have killed an innocent man without thinking! (Or maybe not, because she hardly would have the nerve to kill a person). Afterwards, she returned to Los Angeles and met Hunter.  
  
Rick told Charlotte about how Chloe had died and headed for the precinct, eager to know if McCall had news about the case. And she did: following the clue of the red car with the uncommon tire, she succeeded and found the owner of it: a woman named Ariana Lance. Taken to the police station, she was questioned by the 2 cops and they had no difficulty making her tell them what happened. That fateful day, Ariana was speeding and didn't manage to stop the car when the little child appeared in the middle of the street; after the shock, she picked her cellular phone up and called his brother Jason, who built the whole "crime scene". They took Chloe's body to the park and left her near a tree, hoping that the police believed it had been a murder, thus they would go after criminals and not after "good" citizens like them.  
  
After Chloe's funeral, which was attended by Hunter and McCall, Charlotte decided to return to her home town, in Mississippi. Before leaving, she talked with Hunter and thanked for his support.  
  
"I wished Chloe was alive and she was your daughter, Rick," she added. "I wasn't in love with you that time, I'm not in love now as well, but you're such a great guy... What I wanted to say the day we broke up was that I was going to quit my job to try a more serious relationship, because I was sure that I would end up falling in love with you... Good bye."  
  
Sitting on a park bench, Hunter and McCall were silent. She hugged him, he smiled at her, a sad smile, and kissed her on the cheek. They knew they could count on each other. 


End file.
